Poll: George W. Bush is gaining in popularity

posted at 4:41 pm on June 27, 2012 by Erika Johnsen

I’ve always thought that history is going to be kind to President George W. Bush. While that whole “compassionate conservatism” thing and its derivative policies drive me nuts (what does that imply — that I’m otherwise not compassionate? False, ugh!), I think his humility and good-faith efforts will eventually earn him much more widespread respect than he received when he was in office.

Despite President Obama’s best attempts at a no-holds-barred blame-Bush approach — from continued economic doldrums to Fast & Furious gunwalking tactics, there seems to be no problem that President Obama didn’t “inherit” — it appears that Americans are already starting to look back on President Bush with at least a little more fondness.

The WashExaminer caught this in the latest NBC News/WSJ poll: slowly but surely, President Bush’s approval ratings are on the up and up.

Deep in the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll just published is the first hard evidence that the nation is softening on the 43rd president run out of Washington by Obama and still the target of the current president’s efforts to blame somebody for the rotten economy.

According to the poll, 36 percent of the nation has a very positive to somewhat positive view of the former president, a 10-point surge since he retired to Crawford, Texas after two terms. For a year and a half Bush languished in the poll, but has recently ticked higher, though 45 percent still view him negatively. But that’s better than the 53 percent who viewed him poorly after Obama took office, said pollster Peter Hart and Bill McInturff.

Not bad, considering that Bush has largely removed himself from major public view (in order to do things like work with the Wounded Warrior Project, so awesome), while Obama has done everything under the sun to capitalize on the country’s exasperation near the end of the Bush era.

Honestly, President Obama couldn’t even ease off the blame-game for a day when President Bush visited the White House a month ago for his portrait unveiling — Obama just had to remind everyone how horrible the economy already was when he came into office. Awkward.

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President Obama couldn’t even ease off the blame-game for a day when President Bush visited the White House a month ago for his portrait unveiling — Obama just had to remind everyone how horrible the economy already was when he came into office. Awkward.

Awkward? Hardly….Obama delights in pointing the finger and placing blame, anytime, any place. For him it’s even more fun to do it in person, face to face. Surprised he wasn’t scratching his nose with his middle finger in Bush’s presence.

Let’s not get sloppy-sentimental over GWB: he was no foe of big government and pretty cack-handed even when he was doing the right thing. There was the Miers nomination, his failure to control spending, an Iraq war that took far too long to get on the right track, establishing the TSA and so on. He shines only by comparison.

I always liked George Bush’s personality. I really liked his humor, too, but didn’t agree with many of his policies. I don’t want him back in the form of Jeb, either. That said, I think he has shown pure class as a former president.

When a bunch of evil bast*rds from the muslim religion attempted to behead our country’s banking, defense, and civilian government… George W. Bush did as good a job as anyone else could have or would have at keeping that deed from leading to chaos.
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Barry would have probably identified with the hijackers and said that they reminded him of his days in the choom gang.
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Obama is a mere shadow of the President that preceded him. Not that Bush was perfect, he made mistakes, but most his mistakes were made due to fast moving and very difficult to deal with events. Even Katrina was handled with reasonable response by the Bush admin. Not perfect, but the media and the dems beat him up way beyond his part in the misery that was Katrina.
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Barry on the other hand is the maker of most of his own bad press (though the MSM is still attempting to bury the stink he creates). Had he approached the situation he inherited without using the economic crisis as a sword & and his race as a shield in a battle with the American peoples’ futures… we would not be so damned divided and working so hard to undo the things that he has done.
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I’ve always thought that history is going to be kind to President George W. Bush. While that whole “compassionate conservatism” thing and its derivative policies drive me nuts (what does that imply — that I’m otherwise not compassionate? False, ugh!), I think his humility and good-faith efforts will eventually earn him much more widespread respect than he received when he was in office.

I think you have an excellent understanding of Bush 43 and his role in politics and history.

Granted, that may just be another way of saying that I think you’re smart because you agree with me.

“Compassionate Conservatism” is the flaw at the bottom of all Bush 43′s problems. If not for that, I think the 2006 Dem takeover of Congress would have fizzled, which would have kept the spending down, led to reform of Fannie Mae, and avoided the economic meltdown just before the 2008 election.

It’s still hard to believe Americans reacted to Bush’s overspending by giving Congress to Democrats who tripled his level of overspending, but there it is.

I believe Bush’s flaws were fairly minor overall, but they happened to include a rabidly partisan and even hateful media determined to trash him. They spent the first part of his administration looking desperately for a scandal, but never finding one.

Failing a real scandal, they went with insinuated scandals like Valerie Plame and replacing a few US attorneys, and the lie that there was some scandal concerning WMDs in Iraq.

And that’s why I agree that history will be kind to Bush. Absent the constant onslaught and disinformation from the media, he’ll wind up looking better and better.

Honestly, President Obama couldn’t even ease off the blame-game for a day when President Bush visited the White House a month ago for his portrait unveiling — Obama just had to remind everyone how horrible the economy already was when he came into office. Awkward.

Because he is a low rent P.O.S., then again what does one expect from a Chi-Town thug pol.

Not bad, considering that Bush has largely removed himself from major public view (in order to do things like work with the Wounded Warrior Project, so awesome),

Erika,

You make it sound like Bush went into hiding when he left the White House. He removed himself from politics and I don’t blame him after the way he was treated by his self-proclaimed “base” … but he did not remove himself from ‘public view’, he removed himself from the ‘major media’s view’ because all they wanted was a soundbite about Obama.

And you’ve got backwards his work with our warriors who have been wounded in the War on Terror. The George W. Bush Presidential Center has a Military Initiatives Program and hosts events throughout the year that are tailored specifically for our wounded warriors. The organization of The Wounded Warrior Project is a sponsor of those Military Initiatives.

Sooner or later the public will see the very poor manners of our president. I’m not saying we should have a President pure as the driven snow but I’m saying we all drift a bit. (pun intended) When a President pronounces nuclear as newcler the press falls all over itself to run this by us over and over; What I’m talking about are manners that Mom and Dad drove into our heads when we were young and the ones taught to us by social structures of life. Obama seems to ignore protocol and when he does this the media laughs if off but in cultured nations these gaffs are serious faux pas remembered. There are too many of these to list here and as the man child in office expresses himself his manners are falling into tantrums, wait until tomorrow.

Compassionate conservative was an updated way of saying Rockefeller Republican or country club Republican. In 2000 I voted for him over McCain and have no regrets; certainly he was a far better choice than Gore.

So while I never expected much there was a golden moment where it looked like W was going to achieve Presidential greatness, alas all I can really say is that he was better than Gore or Kerry.

The practice of avoiding media attention was once the unbreakable rule of retired Presidents, the exceptions being Carter and Clinton. (Q Adams and Taft being special cases)Bush always maintained the dignity and grandeur of the office, and still does.

In Bush’s case I think his greatest fault was that his belief in Compassionate Conservatism led him to fill his administration with liberals who ultimately did him and us a lot of damage.

Think for a moment about all the things he could have complained about. While Clinton was president, Al Qaeda was the fastest growing organization in the history of man. They attacked us over and over and Clinton did nothing. This was a recruiting jackpot for Al Qaeda.

Still, Bush never complained. He also hasn’t spoken ill of Obama.

Presidents are not supposed to speak ill of their predecessor or their successor. I’ll bet you Romney restores that tradition.